


A guy who really knows his way around

by Naraht



Category: Rolling Stones, Swinging London RPF, The Beatles
Genre: 1960s, London, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two music managers. A complicated relationship. Who is using whom?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A guy who really knows his way around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/gifts).



> Despite the accuracy of the dates, this is fiction.

> "Q. Do you exploit teenage talent?  
>  A. No. I develop teenage talent."  
>  —Interview with Brian Epstein

> "I wanted to be a little teenage tycoon shit."  
>  —Andrew Loog Oldham

***

_January 1963_  
 _Alpha Television Studios_  
 _Aston, Birmingham_

"What's the point, Eppy?" said John, a grumbled continuation of an earlier argument. "If we're not going to sing tonight, why turn up at all? You could hire a couple of puppets on strings and save us all the trip."

We'd come to Birmingham all the way from Kent, myself by train and the boys loaded into Neil Aspinall's van along with all their kit. Their first national television appearance came in the wake of hard weeks of touring, December at the Star Club followed by a whirlwind tour of Scotland in the New Year. Perhaps in retrospect the booking in Chatham had been a mistake, but I was pushing as hard as I could, unwilling to relent now that success finally seemed within my grasp.

"Would you like that, John?" I asked, reaching out automatically to straighten his tie. "Really?"

"Of course I'd bloody well like it. Should have stayed in Hamburg. At least the people there cared whether or not we opened our fucking mouths."

I put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "If you think that one hit single is enough to get you to the toppermost of the poppermost, you're sorely mistaken. And I must have been mistaken in you, because I never thought you'd give up so easily."

"Eppy…" he said, trying to squirm away. I was implacable.

"You haven't the faintest idea what a coup this is, John. You don't know how many strings Dick James pulled to get you onto _Thank Your Lucky Stars_. I do. And I can tell you, I expect a top-notch performance whether or not you're singing. The whole nation will be seeing your face, don't forget."

My hand had traitorously lingered on the shoulder of his newly-tailored suit. John smirked and fluttered his eyelashes, standing so close that I could feel the heat of his body. Then, just before we had gazed into one another's eyes a moment too long, he withdrew.

"So behave yourself, Lennon," I added, mostly to myself. "I'll be watching."

Off he went whistling as if nothing had happened. He walked onto the now-empty stage and picked up his guitar, adjusting the guitar strap while I stood and tried to calm my pounding heart.

Distraction was not far away. My eyes were drawn by an intriguing young man who stood just at the other side of the stage. Slim, pale blond, he was wearing an eccentrically styled suit with a tie which was both narrower and more modish than it had a right to be. Despite the season and the hour, he was also wearing dark glasses. Something about the glasses spoke to me. I found myself drifting off into an involved daydream about the Costa del Sol. 

The run-through of _Please Please Me_ provided the perfect soundtrack to my fantasies. Together we stared at the boys. If our eyes met it was only for a heartbeat, screened by tinted glass, across a set of strummed guitar strings. It didn't matter. We had a connection. In my mind at least.

My hopes were promptly dashed at the end of the rehearsal when the young man immediately approached John instead of myself. Perfectly understandable and no more than I should have expected. I began to turn away, crossing him off my mental list of prospects, when I overheard what John was saying.

"That's him, over there with the paisley scarf."

Me? He'd asked about me? I fingered my newly purchased Liberty scarf and my heart began to beat a little faster.

The young man now came right over to my side of the stage. "You're their manager?" he asked.

"I am," I replied, erring perhaps on the side of smugness. "Brian Epstein."

He extended a hand. "Andrew Loog Oldham. Freelance press agent for Mark Wynter."

"And what can I do for you?" I asked, able to think of quite a few possibilities immediately.

"You should be asking me that question." He had the assured drawl of a public schoolboy but there was an edge in it that school had never given to anyone. "I'm going to be working for you."

"Oh, are you?" I raised my eyebrows. This was even more intriguing than I had imagined. "And why is that?"

"Because looking at your group, I can tell they're going places. Fucking amazing. And looking at you I can tell you're the one who's going to get them there. You're a man who really knows his way around."

Perhaps I was. Perhaps I didn't appear to him as I did to myself: a twenty-eight year old who had washed out of school, the army and RADA, and since then had lived at home and run his parents' record shop. My aspirations to become a grand impresario were still just that, though it was flattering to hear that I managed to look the part.

"Around Liverpool, anyway," he amended.

"Oh," I said. Then I sighed, deflated. Perhaps he was right. "London is a different matter. London gives me no end of trouble."

He cocked his head to the side but wisely said nothing.

"You would think that Parlophone would promote the boys, wouldn't you?" It was a topic that had preoccupied me ever since they were signed. "Especially now that _Please Please Me_ is at the top of the chart, not that they did any work to get it there. If I hadn't pushed—and I don't like to push, you know—they would have let it sink like a stone. They hardly plugged it at all."

"Criminal," he said. 

He was telling me what I wanted to hear, but I didn't mind in the least. Nothing helped me warm to my theme like a willing listener.

"Parlophone never have believed in the Beatles," I continued. "You've seen them perform. You can tell what they have, can't you? It's something so… I can't even begin to describe it. They're going to be bigger than Elvis, I know that much. I've shouted it from the rooftops and I shall carry on doing so. But what more can one man do?"

"I can help you." He tapped one highly polished shoe. "I used to work for Mary Quant. Do you know her?"

"Of course I do."

How could any regular reader of _Queen_ magazine not have heard of Mary Quant? Her mod minidresses were all the rage, even though I myself happened to be more partial to the New Look silhouettes that I had endlessly sketched as a teenager in the late forties.

"Personally?"

"Well, no," I admitted.

"There you are," he said, triumphant. "You don't know London. Aston is as close as you get. Watford Gap services would be a stretch. That's a problem for you. Takes someone with connections and his feet on the ground in the big smoke to really make things happen."

There was something curiously endearing about his confidence and in any case he did have a point. Liverpool and London were worlds apart. There were only so many hours in the day, so many overnight trains, and so many pills that a man could take. Much though I tried, I couldn't be in two places at once.

"And what did you do for Mary Quant in the great metropolis?"

He shrugged. "All sorts of things."

"Errands," I guessed. The universal constant. Alistair Taylor did mine, mostly because Peter Brown loudly remonstrated with me about his managerial status whenever I tried to get him to pick up my shirts from the cleaners.

Andrew laughed. He had a nice smile. I just wished I could see his eyes. 

"Windowdressing, actually," he said. "And publicity. And errands. And everything else. It's not remotely complicated, business. You pick it all up as you go along if they give you half a chance."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Think you could manage a pop group?"

"Absolutely. When do I start?"

Now it was my turn to laugh. He had _chutzpah_ , one had to give him that.

"Perhaps we can work something out," I said. "We'll discuss it further after the show."

"I'll make it worth your while," said Andrew Loog Oldham.

And he kept his promise after the show.

***

We emerged from the dressing room while Neil and Mal were still loading amplifiers into the van, readying themselves for the long drive back up to Liverpool.

"Right," I said. "Five pounds a week retainer to do publicity for the Beatles and handle the London press."

"Five pounds?" protested Andrew. "That's a pittance!"

It would have been a pittance even if I'd been paying him for services rendered in the dressing room, but I didn't say as much. "If you want employment from a provincial manager, you must learn to accept provincial rates…"

"I'll have to," he said. But he shook my hand and we closed the deal.

"Just one more thing," I said. "How old are you?"

He grinned a cheeky grin. "Nineteen in two weeks."

As Andrew walked off to find his current charge, I realised that John Lennon had been watching us. He had a knowing expression.

"He's a hustler," said John, coming over to me. "He'll hustle you if you let him."

"If he is, he's a good one."

"Done it already, has he?"

Done what? I never knew how to read those intense looks of John's. Was he disgusted, curious, jealous…? Had I still a chance with him? Had he dismissed me entirely?

"Hustled me, John?" I asked nervously.

"You could put it that way," he said. He lit a cigarette and stared into my face.

"We needed a London publicist anyway," I said, just a tad defensively. "He simply realised it sooner than I did."

John gaze drifted downwards. 

"Zip yourself up, Brian," he said.

***

_February 1963_  
 _The Baltic Fleet_  
 _Liverpool_

We met for a drink down by the docks, in the narrow back room of the Baltic Fleet where the windows curved round like the prow of a ship. It had been years since the overhead railway had come down, but I still found myself surprised by the way that the winter sun flooded into the room. It made one feel strangely exposed.

Nonetheless we were the only two people in the room and, as I hadn't seen Peter in ages, I had plenty of news to relate. He nearly choked when I told him about the encounter in Birmingham. 

"Where do you _find_ these people, Brian?"

"He found me," I said, not a little defensively. "It's not as though I made the suggestion. I wouldn't do that sort of thing. It's not the price of admission, you know."

Peter gingerly took a sip of Guinness and licked the froth from his lips suggestively. "Really?"

"Only for you, my dear."

Peter looked paradoxically flattered at that. He was my best friend and I'd made him my right-hand man at NEMS, but even so he didn't half get jealous.

"The point is," I continued, "he was right as well as being beautiful. We need someone to handle the press in London. I can't be making trunk calls every day just to beg for column inches from second-rate journalists."

"So you hired him just like that?" 

"How quickly they forget. I would have hired you on the spot if you hadn't hung about for ages playing hard-to-get."

"I had to consider my options."

"Why don't you come up sometime and see me at Lewis's, Brian?" I mimicked.

Peter laughed. "Was I that obvious?"

I gave him a look.

"Maybe I was," he conceded. "But I could do this job just as well as some schoolboy from down south. Better. I'm just saying."

"Public relations, Peter? You? Really? First time I took you to see the boys, you said they were horrible."

"I said the Cavern was horrible. And it is. But that's by-the-by. I like London. I like talking to people. I could move down there and live with JP."

"I'm only paying him five pounds a week retainer."

He made a face. "Never mind, then."

Now it was my turn to laugh. "Buy me another drink, Mr. Brown. It's my money anyway."

***

_April 1963_  
 _Queen's Drive_  
 _Childwall, Liverpool_

Monday morning. I was late getting out of bed as usual. 

When I came downstairs my family were gathered around the dining room table, lingering over the end of breakfast. My mother looked up with concern as I entered, but my father got in the first word.

"There's a lot needs doing before you're off to Spain on Friday, Brian."

"And I shall do it."

"Any of it for NEMS?" grumbled my brother.

"All of it is for NEMS," I retorted. But we were speaking about two different creatures, the record store and my management company, and Clive knew it very well.

I had barely buttered my toast when the telephone rang. Clive reluctantly put down his paper and went into the hall to answer it.

"Call from London—for you, Brian, naturally. Chap by the name of Oldman."

My family were becoming slowly resigned to—or, in Clive's case, resentful of—the number of calls that had begun to flood in for me, at home as well as at the office. One never knew who might be ringing next. The novelty of receiving a trunk call had not yet begun to fade.

I took my toast into the hallway with me and picked up the phone. "Brian Epstein speaking."

"This is Andrew Oldham. Terribly sorry to bother you at home…"

My very junior press agent from London. Odd of him to call, though. I took a bite of toast, got jam on my fingers, and balanced the phone between cheek and shoulder whilst searching through my pockets for a clean handkerchief. I wiped my fingers and only then began to listen. 

"…but I wanted to let you know personally that I'm resigning."

Once through with the _pro forma_ expressions of regret, he told me that he'd come across some R'n'B group in a hotel bar in Richmond and thought to strike out on his own. If the Beatles didn't provide enough excitement to keep him occupied, one wondered what would. But then he was an independent soul who had always seemed to chafe under my direction, remote and intermittent though it was.

Unexpected resignations had been known to provoke me to a state of fury, but on this particular morning I could not muster much in the way of indignation. Though he fancied his own importance, Andrew was a very small cog in an ever more complicated machine, and I had other things to worry about..

"I'm very sorry to hear that," I interjected when he finally reached a stopping point.

Passing in the hall, my mother gave me a concerned glance. I put my hand over the receiver and shook my head at her. She sighed and went upstairs.

"Obviously I haven't your expertise in terms of organising bookings, negotiating contracts, and so forth…"

"Have you spoken with this group at all?"

"Not yet," he said. "I only saw them on Saturday."

"Do you happen to know whether they're under management already?"

"No."

"Mmm," I said politely.

"But, as I say, I did want to offer you the chance to involve yourself in their management, if you were interested…"

"Mmm," I said again. My father squeezed past me, heading for the front door. He pointedly tapped his watch before picking up his umbrella and departing. "That's very kind of you, Andrew, but I'm afraid I shall have to decline."

"Well," Andrew said, sounding faintly relieved, "I just wanted you to feel that you've had the opportunity…"

"Absolutely. Much appreciated. And I wish you the best of luck with this new group of yours… what are they called again?"

A pose, this; I couldn't remember whether he'd told me or not.

"The Rolling Stones," said Andrew Loog Oldham.

"The Rolling Stones," I repeated. The name did sound vaguely familiar now. Hadn't the boys gone to see them in a club last week after playing _Thank Your Lucky Stars_? No matter. Pop groups were as thick on the ground as the proverbial leaves that strew the brooks of Vallombrosa. "Very good. Take care, Andrew. All the best."

I hung up the phone with a sense of relief. There was so much else to think about. After all, I would be going to Barcelona with John Lennon in less than a week.

***

_September 1963_  
 _Royal Albert Hall_  
 _South Kensington_

It was a gloriously sunny day, warm enough to make me regret the fact that I was wearing a heavy wool suit, but I valued my dignity too much to be seen in shirtsleeves on such an occasion. The Albert Hall scintillated in the light, all gold leaf and glamour.

Only a few weeks earlier—though it seemed a lifetime ago—I'd been to the Albert Hall with Peter Brown for a Proms concert, watching John Pritchard conduct the Glyndebourne production of L'incoronazione di Poppea. I had left the boys doing a photoshoot at a London hotel and, much though I'd tried to enjoy my evening's freedom from the responsibilities of pop management, my mind, like that of a mother who has left her child behind at home, had kept drifting back to them. 

The truth was that I had no desire to be free of the responsibilities of pop management. Not at the moment anyway, not now that things were—suddenly, miraculously—all going according to plan. Not now that it was my boys who were performing at the Albert Hall.

My own boys! No matter that the Great Pop Prom was hardly the gala event that its title promised. It was London and their names were in lights (or at the very least, in the programme). We had finally arrived and we were enjoying every minute of it.

After arriving we'd been immediately ushered out to the back of the hall for a pre-concert photocall. One could not have chosen a better location for it. The Albert Hall shone behind us, its curved facade illuminated by the afternoon sun, as we made our way down the broad steps towards the waiting photographers. 

"Can you believe it?" said Paul.

"Of course I can," said I, wondering whether I ought to pinch myself.

We'd been beaten there by the Rolling Stones. There was Mick, posing for the cameras; I discreetly admired him from the rear. So did John, or maybe that was my imagination. I shooed him and the others over towards the waiting gentlemen of the press.

On the edge of the scene was Andrew Loog Oldham, sitting on one of the wide stone balustrades and smoking a cigarette. He was still only nineteen and it was difficult to believe that he had so quickly succeeded in becoming the manager of this rather exceptional new group. If he had not been so sharply dressed, he would have looked as though he were an impecunious music student queuing for a ticket in the Arena.

I went to stand beside him and he silently offered me a cigarette. Together we studied our groups as they stood on the steps, larking for the cameras. My boys were in their mohair suits, rather warm for the day but fitting for the occasion. His boys wore shirts and ties with leather waistcoats. I assumed that they hadn't chosen their own clothes either.

"Your styling is very striking," I said politely.

"I'm trying to get them out of shitty matching outfits. But the leather's a start."

"Mine would dress head to toe in leather if I let them."

It was only with the greatest difficulty that I had persuaded them to retain their suits for their most recent visit to Hamburg.

"I know. But you never will." He looked over at me, lip curling with a touch of derision. "They're not your _style_ , are they, Brian? And I'm not your kind of manager."

"I wouldn't say that," I protested.

"You could have fooled me. Wish you hadn't turned down my offer, then? Seething with regret?"

I could feel myself flushing. "I don't begrudge you your success, if that was what you meant."

"I didn't," he said, but failed to elaborate.

I had the feeling that he wanted something from me—money? sex? affirmation?—but I hadn't the faintest idea what that might be.

There was a silence. From the street below came the faint shouts of teenage fans being held back by the police. I wondered what the good folk of the Royal College of Music thought of the scene. In their building across the road a few people looked curiously out of open windows. One of them disappeared as I was watching; the curtains were drawn decisively closed.

"You don't believe it, do you?" I said finally. "All those things you say. It's simply done to shock."

"Of course I believe it. Why not tell the truth? This business is about nothing but money. That's all I want out of it. That's all anyone wants, it's just that they're less honest about it than I am. What else is there?"

I spread my arms wide. "All this!"

The sunshine, the photographers, the boys. This whole glorious afternoon. I could not imagine anything that I would have wanted more. Money was an afterthought at best, and mostly nothing more than an annoyance. Perhaps it didn't say much for me as a businessman but I simply could not see it as the be-all and end-all of life.

"All this and money too," said Andrew Loog Oldham.

"It's a pose," I said firmly.

"Are you sure?"

In his case I was not at all sure. "Yes," I said after a pause.

"Well, I don't mind posing." He leant back against the balustrade, showing off his long, lean body. "Oscar Wilde, darling. _To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up_."

"It is," I said, thinking of something else entirely. Despite all his affectations I was not sure that he would understand.

No harm in trying, though.

"After the show," I added tentatively, "might you like to come back to my hotel for a drink…?"

He glanced over at me curiously and for a moment, a bare moment, I thought he was going to say yes. There was something almost wistful in his gaze. Then he shook his head.

"That the best you can do, Brian? Try asking me out to dinner next time."

And he walked away, his slim hips swaying disdainfully.

***

> "Oh suck it Andrew  
>  (Go on Andrew)  
>  Fuck it Andrew  
>  (Go on Andrew)
> 
> Oh Andrew Oldham (yeah)  
>  A guy who really  
>  Knows his way around  
>  (Down down down down)"
> 
> —The Rolling Stones, "Andrew's Blues"


End file.
